Feb 19 2009
Law & health must co-operate to reduce drug harm
A visiting British drug expert told the Healthy Drug Law Symposium in Wellington today that health and law enforcement professionals would best protect individuals and communities from drug harm by working together.
Feb 19 2009
Harsh cannabis laws defy good sense
Drug legislation and policy tend to focus too much on enforcement and tough-talk and too little on evidence about what really works, a visiting expert told the Healthy Drug Law Symposium in Wellington today. The result is often irrational l
Feb 19 2009
Commitment needed for international drug control
A visiting United Nations official told the Healthy Drug Law Symposium in Wellington today that the UN-led international drug control system has been successful, despite criticism and that it is essential the world community works together
Feb 19 2009
Treatment smartest option for drug offenders
The New Zealand government could save millions of dollars by diverting New Zealanders with drug problems out of the court system and into the health system, says a major international expert.
Feb 18 2009
What alternative to the War on Drugs?
Drug control in the form of prohibition or a ‘War on Drugs’ has been a spectacular failure, a visiting American expert told a symposium in Wellington today. However, he says the alternative is not to abandon the effort altogether, but to fi
Feb 18 2009
Communities need to re-think drug attitudes
Not my family, and never my child. Tony Trimingham says that, like most people, he knew little about drug-taking and thought it wasn't something that would ever affect him. Then he discovered his son, Damien, was using heroin.
Feb 16 2009
Drug policy symposium an unprecedented event
Organisers are calling this week’s Healthy Drug Law Symposium the most significant drug policy discussion in New Zealand’s history.
Through the maze - healthy drug law reform
The Law Commission's review of the Misuse of Drugs Act cannot come soon enough. The Drug Foundation has some ideas about how a new Act should look, based on 30 years of experience and evidence.
Mythbusters: Ketamine: not just for horses, also for badgers
The media's delight in describing ketamine as a horse tranquiliser is doing nothing to help convey a clear understanding of relative drug harm.